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Plaintext
250 lines
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Plaintext
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_____________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ _____________
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| ___________ _/_/ | | \ \ _/_/ ___________ |
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| | c o m m u n i c a t i o n s | |
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| |________________________________________________________________| |
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|____________________________________________________________________|
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...presents... Sanford's Calico
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by James Cazamias
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>>> a cDc publication.......1994 <<<
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-cDc- CULT OF THE DEAD COW -cDc-
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____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____ _ ____
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|____digital_media____digital_culture____digital_media____digital_culture____|
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Sanford and I both work at the local lab; he's a computer jock, and I do
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research in microelectronics. We rarely cross paths in the office, but we've
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remained close since college. For instance, every Friday we make a point of
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going to Garvey's Pub to drink and talk.
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It was on one such expedition that we spoke of Sanford's Calico.
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He had gotten the cat fairly recently, apparently from an animal shelter
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in Phoenix. He had paid for all the papers and shots out of his own pocket,
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and though the cost was only a fraction of that one might pay in a pet store,
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it put a serious dent in his paycheck. Sanford claimed not to mind, however,
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as the calico was delightful company and easy to care for.
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It was an outdoors cat, according to my friend, and it preferred stalking
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about under the hedges of his backyard to loafing on a sofa all day. Sanford
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would just let it outside in the morning when he went to work, and when he
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returned it would be standing by the door, meowing amiably and ready for a good
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scratching. The eternal bachelor Sanford found this very pleasant.
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It seems the calico (Sanford, eccentric as always, refused to give the
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beast a name) was something of a hunter. More often than not, Sanford pulled
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into the driveway only to find a mouse or small bird lying dead and bloodied on
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the front stair - presumably as a gift for him. Sanford decided that, for all
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its barbarism, this little ritual was incredibly cute, and would reward the
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purring kitty with a tin of sardines for its trouble.
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At any rate, the calico, being as subject to Pavlovian dynamics as any
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other creature, accelerated its campaign against the local fauna (and
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occasionally flora) in hopes of receiving its just piscine desserts every day.
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This strategy seemed to work well - the cat got its fish, and Sanford got a
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regular supply of deceased delicacies on his walk. Sanford found this to be a
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scream, and was considering keeping a kind of scrapbook of the calico's
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"trophies." He thought nothing of the rapid denuding of the local background
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wildlife population.
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As a kind of afterthought, Sanford mentioned that on the previous morning
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the calico had dragged in a mutant mouse. It looked perfectly normal in every
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respect, except that its tail was scaled like a lizard's, and blue.
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- ** -
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The following Monday, Sanford did not come to work. He was also not there
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on Tuesday, and the word came down the pipeline that he was AWOL. When he
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didn't show on Wednesday either, I decided to check up on him that evening.
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I pulled my rebuilt Catalina into Sanford's drive and parked it. The
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house looked like a sepulchre: shades drawn, no lights, papers piling on the
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lawn. It looked like Sanford had just pulled up roots and left. However, if
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you knew Sanford like I know Sanford, you would know that Sanford never leaves
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home without putting a tailor's mannequin in the window, presumably to ward off
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really stupid and myopic burglars. I climbed to the front door and rang the
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bell.
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I had barely released the button when the door opened a crack. A moment
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later it was flung full open, and Sanford was dragging me inside. "In!
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Quick!" he hissed, and slammed the door.
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Sanford looked terrible. He had huge, dark circles under his eyes, and
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the stain on his lips told me he had taken up chain-smoking again. His t-shirt
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had mustard stains on it, and he wasn't wearing anything else. In short, he
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looked like a body found in a ditch, and I told him so. He seemed not to hear
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me.
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"Anybody see you? Anybody follow you here?" His eyes glittered at me in
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the near-darkness. I shook my head. He looked relieved.
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"Jesus... you don't know what I've been through, man...." He looked like
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he was going to collapse. I ushered him into his own living room and made room
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on a recliner by clearing away a stack of newspapers. I knew where everything
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was in his kitchen, so I fixed him some coffee and a sandwich and tried to make
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him comfortable.
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He looked a lot better after eating something. I pushed some comic books
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off the sofa and sat down to watch him. He took a long pull at the coffee and
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sat back heavily into the comfortable chair. "Sheez..." he breathed, closing
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his eyes.
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At that moment there came a noise at the back door. It was a grating
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sound, of something rough being dragged across something metal. Claws on the
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screen door - the calico. "Shall I let it in?" I asked, rising from my seat.
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I stopped when I saw the look of horror on Sanford's face.
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"No! Don't! The cat... who knows what it's gotten into... it's not safe,
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man! Don't let it in!" It poured out in a rush of panic. I got him some more
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coffee and tried to calm him down. When he seemed a bit less jumpy, I asked
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him to tell me what this was all about. He looked at me with the unwilling
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stare of a man forced to relive his worst nightmare.
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"They're in the freezer...."
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- ** -
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There were three things in the freezer. One was a pound of ground chuck
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roast that had been in there long enough to be harder than a brick. The other
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two objects were not hamburgers. They were sealed in zip-loc baggies.
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The first contained a bird. It was the size and shape of a sparrow, but
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its feathers were all colors of the rainbow. Its beak was curved slightly like
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a finches', and it had eight talons on each claw. It had several wounds on its
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sides and neck. Its tongue, protruding slightly, would have been six inches
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long if extended fully. It was clearly not a local bird.
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The remaining specimen was beyond "not local." It was not terrestrial.
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It was the size of a large rat. It looked something like a wolf spider,
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but stretched to the length of a shoe. It had thick tannish bristles with
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spots, like a leopard's. At the end of its body was a vicious-looking stinger.
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Its grasping palps were tipped with what can only be described as three fingers
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and an opposing thumb.
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Both creatures were severely mauled. There was no question that the
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calico, fearless feline hunter, had been on one hell of a safari.
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"Where'd they come from? What are they?" Sanford wanted to know. I
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couldn't help him. But the calico could....
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"Oh, no," said Sanford, backing up. "I'm not letting that cat back in
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here."
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- ** -
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The cat chewed noisily on its Tender Vittles. Sanford looked as strung
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out as an addict, and he sucked on his cigarettes like they were full of gold
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dust. We watched the cat eat and waited.
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Eventually the calico finished, burped, and curled up on the carpet to
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sleep as if nothing had happened.
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Sanford and I exchanged glances.
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We watched the cat all through the night.
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- ** -
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The next morning Sanford gingerly fed the cat some sardines. It mewed
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happily as the can opener ran, and gobbled the fishes down as soon as they were
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under its nose. Then we let it out into the yard.
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It seemed to have a standard routine of yard-traversal: it would sniff
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every plant and pebble in turn, as if conducting an inventory. Then it would
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hunker down in the shade under the bushes and lie in wait for prey. There in
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the shadows, it looked like a little tiger. We watched it from the bathroom
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window with a pair of binoculars.
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Over the next few hours, the calico made several attempts to bag a
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cardinal which was trying to hunt up grubs on the ground. The cat would dash
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out from cover, a blur of color, but the cardinal would swoop out of danger
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just in time. The hunter would then pretend indifference, and would saunter
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casually back to its hiding place, as if preparing for a lazy afternoon nap.
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Fifteen minutes later, it would try again, with similarly poor results.
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At about 12:30 the calico slipped through our surveillance.
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"Where'd it go?" Sanford asked. I took the glasses, but the cat was not
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in the yard. I berated him for letting it get away without seeing which fence
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it had jumped, but he insisted that it has simply disappeared. Naturally, I
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didn't believe him.
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"All right then, Mr. Know-It-Fucking-All," he blustered, "YOU track the
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little bastard tomorrow." That gave me an idea.
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That evening the calico left a gift on the stairs.
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Owls don't have fangs. Do they?
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- ** -
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The next day saw a repeat of the previous ritual, with one exception. The
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technology level of calico-tracking had advanced a century or so.
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We had fitted a small signal emitter, courtesy of the lab and its generous
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after-hours policy, to the cat's collar. We had also borrowed an oscilloscope,
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a receiver, an amplifier, a multi-band gain unit, several I/O boards, and the
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most advanced terminal from my division. Sanford's bathroom looked like
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Arecibo, and we could have heard a spider piss if it didn't put the seat up.
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Ah, modern science.
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The cat went through its standard motions of local hunting, the results
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matching well with the previous day's foray. It bumbled around the yard until
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almost three in the afternoon before vanishing.
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We peered at the screen. One second ago, the cat had been licking its
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paws in the middle of the lawn. The next moment it was simply not there. The
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computer confirmed what we thought we had hallucinated: the cat had made an
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instantaneous translation out of the range of our equipment.
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Well, not quite instantaneous. A rigorous analysis of the shifting of the
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signal wavelengths showed that, at the moment of transmission loss, the calico
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had been receding at a rate just under the speed of light.
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- ** -
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The calico did not return that day. However, Sanford and I were awakened
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around midnight by the familiar scraping at the door screen, and we admitted
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the wayward cat. It bore with it a small creature, something like a cross
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between a parakeet and an opossum. It was thoroughly mauled, and quite dead.
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Further investigation showed that its left ear was pierced with a ring holding
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metallic tags with bizarre spidery markings.
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It took two pots of coffee to calm Sanford down.
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- ** -
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Sanford got rid of the cat. I don't know how, or where it wound up, and
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I'm sure I don't want to know. Science is good for lots of things, but there
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are some mysteries that don't bear looking into.
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I live in Melbourne now, designing printed circuit boards. It's kind of
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dreary work, but it's a long way away from Arizona.
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I figure when the aliens come to find the predator that has been hauling
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off their pets, this is the last place they'll look.
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_______ __________________________________________________________________
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/ _ _ \|Demon Roach Undrgrnd.806/794-4362|Kingdom of Shit.....806/794-1842|
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((___)) |Cool Beans!..........415/648-PUNK|Polka AE {PW:KILL}..806/794-4362|
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[ x x ] |Metalland Southwest..713/579-2276|ATDT East...........617/350-STIF|
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\ / |The Works............617/861-8976|Ripco ][............312/528-5020|
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(' ') | Save yourself! Go outside! DO SOMETHING! |
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(U) |==================================================================|
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.ooM |Copyright (c) 1994 cDc communications and James Cazamias. |
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\_______/|All Rights Reserved. 11/01/1994-#284|
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